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Saturday, February 15, 2014

SPOILERS: Batman Beyond 2.0, Chapters #13 & 14

With Bruce and Terry captured, the Mayor is getting impatient waiting for Barbara’s “team” to iron out the Man-Bat situation, and readies his special forces to go in. Elsewhere, Terry wakes up in a cell across from Bruce, and it’s time for Man-Bat story time!

So after the initial Man-Bat incidents, Kirk and Francine left the serum behind and went on to have a happy little family with two kids. Everything was great until Francine was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Parkinsons, which a bad life expectancy prognosis. While the children took care of Francine, Kirk began to get desperate and threw himself into working on the Man-Bat serum again, in hopes of finding a way to harness in order to help Francine… Unfortunately, Francine had a fall, and due to her unable to move or speak on her own, she broke her him, and wasn’t treated for some time, and died soon after.

With all that, Kirk’s children became angry towards him due to him not being there for their mother, and left… Maybe you can start to see some parallels here. Anyways, after having found the breakthrough in the formula, allowing him to control Man-Bat, he’s been living in secret since then, an this cult is his attempts to have a family again, only he needs the Kanium in order to let his cult control themselves while under the influence of the formula. Only question left is Tey, who was a hostage of the Jokerz, but Man-Bat saved her and they fell in love.

While story time is happening, the Mayor’s special forces move in, but are quickly met by Tey and a good deal more Man-Bat cultists. Doesn’t go well for the special forces, but they’re able to get a few hits in on the Man-Bats, even Tey, who Kirk has to rescue. She tells him that the city has no plans on giving them the Kanium, so it’s time to launch their weapon.

Terry sees the fight out his window, and it becomes clear that he needs to get out, but he wonders if Bruce wanted them to get caught in order to plant the Francine story in Kirk’s head. Bruce says that’s ridiculous, but he did want to see if the man he knew was still inside Man-Bat, something he’s still not sure of. After thinking a bit, Terry figures out a plan to get out of their cages by using the headphones he’s got to vibrate the old rusty locks. Turns out though, Dick didn’t fashion those himself, as Bruce tells Terry that Dick called him after the Shriek incident, but Terry probably already knew that because Dick keeps nothing from him, right? (Batman is a troll)

So the two escape and get in contact with Barbara who tells them that the Mayor is prepared to use satellite weapons to wipe the whole neighborhood out if the weapon gets lit up, so Terry goes to fight off the Man-Bats while Bruce goes and tries to find Kirk.

When Bruce finds Kirk preparing the weapon, he tries to reason with his old friend again, telling Kirk he doesn’t want to do this, to which Kirk agrees, but reminds Bruce that he warned them. Bruce tells Kirk that if he does, the city will use the satellite to wipe them out, but also mentions it’s a Waynetech satellite, which he then cuts off, so he can try to continue and reason with Kirk. Bruce goes on to say that they’ve both made mistakes that have tarnished the legacy they had hoped to leave behind, and reminds Kirk that he’s not a monster. Kirk doesn’t agree, telling Bruce that they’re both monsters, and it’s time they pay the price, and proceeds to fire up the weapon.

END.

The Good:

We get a bit of the lost years sort of story telling here, with Kirk's life after Man-Bat. The back story reminds you that Kirk never really was a villain, unlike some interpretations of him that just have him working with villains, just because... Looking at you, Arkham War. By the end of chapter #14, some fitting comparisons between Kirk and where Bruce stands in this era of Beyond are made, giving a little more depth to this story.

The Bad:

Kind of wish there was more to Tey other than "I rescued her and now we're in love." It's just sort of like: "Okaaaaay?" I don't know, when the two captives recognize her a couple chapters back, it just seemed like there was more of a story there. Maybe there still is, who knows?

The Bottom Line:

Terry takes a back seat in these two chapters, while the spotlight is shined on Man-Bat, and how he's really similar to Bruce in a number of ways. It's an interesting turn to sort of put the title character in the back, while parallels between a classic "villain" and Bruce's current status quo in the Beyond universe are made. Overall, another solid read from Beyond 2.0.